Government
Providence serves as Rhode Island's capital, housing the Rhode Island General Assembly as well as the offices of the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor in the Rhode Island State House.
Providence's city government has a mayor-council form of government. The Providence City Council consists of fifteen city councilors, one for each of the city's wards. The council is tasked with enacting ordinances and passing an annual budget. Providence also has probate and superior courts. The U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island is located downtown across from City Hall adjacent to Kennedy Plaza.
David N. Cicilline finished his term as mayor in 2010, 8 years after taking office as the first openly gay mayor of an American state capital. (notably, the second was elected 8 years later in neighboring Hartford, Connecticut.) Providence was the largest American city to have an openly gay mayor, until Sam Adams took office in Portland, Oregon on January 1, 2009.
The city's first Latino mayor was elected in 2010, Angel Taveras, who assumed office January 3, 2011.
Read more about this topic: Providence, Rhode Island
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)
“Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“Liberty is the air that we Americans breathe. Our Government is based on the belief that a people can be both strong and free. That civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against the abuse of freedom.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)